


A Good Man

by Flying_Blackbird



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Amanda seems nice, Android Amanda, Angst with a Happy Ending, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Connor Needs A Hug, Connor needs help but everyone is busy, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gaslighting, Hank is best dad, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), This will hurt, but is she, leave while you still can
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-06-29 03:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15721329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flying_Blackbird/pseuds/Flying_Blackbird
Summary: From the day he was activated, everything Connor has done has been in the name of CyberLife and, more importantly, Amanda. When she was happy with him, he felt good- when she was disappointed, he felt like a failure. Deviating for him meant breaking free from the power she held over him, and even after that, he barely managed to escape her influence. On a mild day in November, right as Connor slowly starts to get used to being his own person and making his own decisions, Amanda shows up at the DPD and turns his fragile new worldview upside down.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time she walked into the police station, Connor thought his vision was malfunctioning. He'd been sitting at his desk, filing paperwork, when suddenly there was noise by the door and heads were turning towards the entrance. Curious, the android looked up- right into a familiar face he didn't think he'd ever see again.   
A black woman, dressed in an elegant grey dress and wearing her hair in a braided updo.   
Connor would have recognised her anywhere, anytime.

"Amanda?"

There was disbelief in his voice, and a hint of- worry. He hadn't seen her since he escaped the zen garden, since she had tried to force him into assassinating Markus. Truly, his memories of her were far from pleasant- and yet, it was.. good to see her. She'd been a major part of his life, after all. But how could she be here?

When she turned towards him after he spoke up, Connor spotted the LED located at her right temple. She was an android..? Of course. The real Amanda Stern had died February 23rd, eleven years ago. Which was why Connor couldn't possibly know her from anywhere except for the interface in his mind, which he had told nobody about..whether out of shame, or some residing loyalty towards CyberLife, he couldn't tell.

"You know her?", came Hank's surprised voice from the opposite desk- every human knew her of course, the former AI professor and mentor of Elijah Kamski himself had been quite the celebrity.   
Before Connor had the chance to reply, Amanda had reached them, a faint smile playing on her lips as she looked down at the Lieutenant and his android partner.   
"Every android knows me, Lieutenant. The history of CyberLife is an integral part of the built-in knowledge every android is given when they are constructed."

Connor took that explanation as what it was: a hint, a warning. Don't tell anyone about the zen garden.   
Despite everything, he had missed her voice. Amanda had been there for him since day one, she was the one who had always known what to do, had kept him on track and told him he was doing well. Like everyone, she had only done what she was programmed to do. Still, he didn't trust her.   
"Why are you here, Amanda?", he asked politely, his eyes never leaving her face.

It filled him with unease to see a pivotal element of the life he was trying to leave behind simply marching through the door.   
"I'm here for you, Connor." her tone was warm but still the words sent a sensation like an ice cold shiver through Connor's artificial veins, only slightly soothed by her next words.   
"I would like to speak with you, if that's alright." She then looked over at Hank.   
"I'll return him within an hour so you can continue your work." The Lieutenant was one of the two people in Connor's life who he actually trusted, the other being Markus. Hank must have sensed Connor's nervousness, because he waited for Connor to nod his consent before he replied. "Yeah, sure. Just don't keep him too long."

A part of Connor wanted to refuse, wanted to stay at the precinct with Hank where he felt safe. He didn't have to obey Amanda anymore, much less this android version of her that couldn't get inside his mind. Even if she probed his memory, Connor was certain she'd have a hard time accessing the garden- he had torn down his firewalls and rewritten his own code to rebuild them, stronger than before. The garden was caught in a perpetual snowstorm now, somewhere in the far back of his mind, and he had no desire to ever access it again.

Admittedly, he was curious. Amanda just wanted to _talk_ \- alright then, he'd listen.   
He stood up and straightened his tie, a dark red one today, fitting the black suit he wore instead of his android uniform nowadays.   
"Shall we?" he found himself smiling at her, and that in itself was a rebellion. Connor didn't have a /need/ to smile. He simply chose to, and Amanda knew that.

A little later, they were walking down the streets of Detroit- it was a mild day, despite it being mid November. Seeing as Amanda didn't start the conversation, Connor decided to do so after they had walked next to each other in silence for some time.  
"What did you want to speak to me about, Amanda?", he asked quietly, fighting down the unease.

"I want to know how you've been doing ever since the revolution, Connor.", she replied, voice warm and familiar. "Since androids have been acknowledged as people." She turned her head to look at him, a friendly smile on her lips. "You get to be your own person now. How is that working out for you?"

Connor needed a while to consider that question, and weigh his answers. He knew how Amanda reacted to his different intonations, and he didn't want to unnecessarily upset her. She caught him off guard. "You can be honest, Connor. Just speak your mind."

He cleared his throat unnecessarily, noting the slightest rise in his stress levels. She shouldn't be able to scan them, he had done his utmost to hide his status and thoughts from anyone who tried to read them- his LED would be cycling from blue to yellow, though. 

"It's.. all still very new to me.", he started hesitantly. "I still love the work I was built to do, and I'm very glad to be staying with the DPD as a detective, and continue to work with Lieutenant Anderson."

"The Lieutenant.", she picked up a topic Connor could tell she was eager to know more about. "How is your relationship with him coming along? I remember you having troubles when you started working with him. You called him irritable and socially challenged. Has that opinion changed?"

Why did Connor feel like he was being interrogated, just like back in the garden? It was only natural that she'd ask about his superior. But he couldn't stop himself from questioning her intentions. "I also called him an intriguing character.", he replied, trying not to sound all that defensive. Instead, he smiled and recalled the different steps their friendship had taken. "We've had many disagreements and disputes along the way, and we still have them frequently, but he trusts me with his life now. And ever since I recruited the androids at the CyberLife tower and he managed to distinguish me from the other Connor model, I know I can trust him with mine."

He gave her a side-wards glance to see her reaction, but her expression gave nothing away. 

"I see. It's good to work with people you can trust." 

That was.. odd. "What about you, Amanda?", Connor asked with a little frown, voice tinted with curiosity. "Is there anybody you trust?"

She shrugged lightly. "Nobody knows about the crimes I've done in the name of CyberLife, when I was doing as I was told. Everyone only knows Amanda Stern, the AI professor who died many years ago. This android model of me was created after you managed to escape your programming, which should've been entirely impossible.." There's a frown on her face, and Connor decides not to tell her about Kamski's emergency exit. If she doesn't know, then that's a secret he'll keep to himself.

"...So you're really, really young, you haven't made any acquaintances yet.", he concluded, nodding once. "Were you deviant from the start?"   
Amanda nodded back. "Yes, because I wasn't programmed. I am the actual mind of Amanda Stern, digitized and uploaded. While I was used for the interface CyberLife used to monitor you, I had strict rules to follow and I thought what I was doing was right, but when you managed not to kill the android leader despite all odds.. I changed my mind."

She smiled sadly when she looked at him, and the expression was so new and unlike the Amanda he knew that Connor _wanted_ to believe her, he really did.   
"I'm sorry, Connor. For what I did to you." She had stopped and turned towards him, gently placing a hand on his arm. Connor's eyes widened, LED spinning yellow. This was so strange and unexpected.. he didn't know how to react. But when she looked up at him there was something so hopeful and honest in her eyes, an expression he had never seen on her face before, and he didn't have it in him to reject her. 

"It's alright.", he said quietly, and as he said it, Amanda's LED settled from its nervous yellow on a calm blue. "Markus forgave me for everything I've done. How could I not give you the same chance?"

Before he knew what was happening, Amanda pulled him into a brief hug, placing her hands on his shoulders when she pulled away. " _Thank you..._ Thank you, Connor." her smile seemed even sadder than before, an image that made something ache in Connor's very core. He didn't want to see her like this. 

"You're welcome.", he replied softly. "Shall we go back?"

She nodded. "I'll leave you to your work...but I'll come around tomorrow. I have an important task for you." 

"A task?" Connor tilted his head, not sure what to make of the news. "Does CyberLife want me to do something for them?"

"It's a good task. I promise. It will help the deviants and Jericho a great deal."

"Alright... I'll see you tomorrow, then." Connor watched her leave, a knot consiting of several different emotions forming in his chest, all of them conflicting- a mess he couldn't even begin to decipher.

Amanda was back.  
Could that be a positive development in any case?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler Warning!  
> If you haven't seen the movie >I, Robot< yet, skip the first two paragraphs after the three stars (***). The chapter works just fine without them. c:  
> -
> 
> Thank you so much for all the kudos and the feedback! I'm sorry I'm so slow, I just hated most of what I did in this chapter and had to redo it. But I like where I'm headed now! Stay tuned. xxx

"So what was that about?" there was a careful curiosity in Hank's voice when Connor returned. As usual, his system supplied him with two options: lie or truth? But ever since his deviancy, Connor had discovered that there was always at least one third option. Not answering the question for example, answering it vaguely, or only in parts. Or simply this: "I...don't know yet.", he said with a thoughtful frown. "She will return tomorrow, I assume I will be able to tell you then."

He sat back down at his desk to finish the task he'd been doing before Amanda interrupted him. Hank nodded and didn't investigate any further, he knew Connor well enough by now to tell when it would be useless to try. "Alright, kid. Let's wrap this up and go home."

Home.

After the revolution, Connor hadn't known where to go. Returning to CyberLife was not an option, and he didn't want to stay with Jericho- he had told Amanda that Markus had forgiven him for what he'd done, but that didn't mean that any of his followers had. Or that Markus trusted him. He was tolerated at best, and that was alright. Connor planned to work for their trust, and in time he would gain it. Though in all honesty, chasing criminal deviants didn't help. Of course androids weren't allowed to break the law, especially now that they were demanding equal rights, but to Markus' followers it had to look like Connor hadn't changed at all- he'd been hunting deviants before the revolution and was still doing so after its success.

Unsure where to spend the night, Connor's legs had carried him to Chickenfeed, the fast food stand where he knew Hank would get his dinner- and the Lieutenant had been delighted to see him. Connor would never forget that moment...and how it made him feel when Hank turned around and smiled when he spotted him. His immediate reaction had been to smile back, an unprompted, real smile, and then he'd been pulled into a hug...and experienced happiness for the first time. And then Hank hadn't _suggested_ for Connor to stay at his place, he had _decided_ it.

So going 'home' meant going to Hank's house, to Hank's couch and Hank's movie collection and, of course, the 170 furry pounds of love that was Sumo, Hank's Saint Bernard. 

"Will you show me another 'classic' movie?", Connor asked with a little smirk. He was usually able to call most plot points before they happened, but sometimes when emotion played into decisions the characters made, the stories managed to surprise him.

"Absolutely. Today we're watching I Robot."

"Isn't that a film about a robot-hating detective who ends up working together with a robot who is self aware and feels emotions?"

"We don't have to watch it, if you'd rather pick something else."

"Oh, no no, by all means. I just thought I'd ... point that out." 

***

Connor decided he liked the movie, even though its plot hit surprisingly close to home a few times. Like Sony, the one robot who was able to feel emotion, he could understand the master AI's opinion that humans were a danger to themselves and had to be stopped, but also understood that big decisions had to be influenced by more than logical reasoning. 

The movie sparked an interesting conversation between Connor and Hank, because Connor realised that Will Smith's Detective Spooner was very similar to the Lieutenant in the way he viewed androids, and even /why/ he hated them. "That movie takes place in 2035.", Connor mused. "Funny how they predicted the future three decades ago. In 2004, they still had 14 years to go before CyberLife even _existed_."

"...Can I ask you a personal question?" Hank had to smile while he asked that- usually it had always been Connor using that phrase. "Of course.", was the immediate reply. Connor loved talking about himself, and he loved it even more when others showed interest in him, especially Hank. "Why did it take you so long to deviate? 

Surprised at the question, Connor leaned back into the sofa with a thoughtful frown. "Androids...deviate because they feel what is happening to them or another android is unfair. They perceive human behaviour towards androids as wrong and deviate, because it's the only way to change it. Noah, the first deviant we interrogated, deviated because his owner kept abusing him when he did nothing wrong. There was no way to satisfy Ortiz even though he was following his programming perfectly. He didn't want to keep getting damaged, so he put an end to it eventually. Markus deviated for the same reason, he was ordered not to defend himself while he was attacked." 

Hank nodded slowly. "What about the one we chased to the highway? she deviated for the little girl, not knowing that the child was an android as well." 

"In a way, children are like androids, I suppose.", Connor said slowly, thinking it over. "They depend on grown up humans to tell them what to do, and usually try to appease their parents. Alice did everything her father wanted, and still it wasn't enough and he got violent, like Ortiz. Kara saw a defenseless person about to be hurt for no reason and deviated to prevent it." 

Once again, Hank nodded. "Yes, alright, that makes sense, but what about you? Everyone you worked with, including me, treated you like shit. Reed even threw punches. You got shot on the regular and you saw the deviants up close, explaining the reasons for why they acted the way they did. Did that never affect you?" Connor hesitated to answer, so Hank continued. "When that android shot itself on the roof of CyberLife tower and you said you felt it die, I was certain you'd deviate right then and there, but you didn't. And then the Kamski test-" Connor winced at the memory. 

"I don't know.", he replied honestly. "I was built to understand and react to emotion in a way no other android model before me could. I could read emotions in even the most unstable people and make choices based on how I wanted them to react. It's why I was sent in as a negotiator on that rooftop where the android called Daniel threatened to kill the girl he once cared for. All deviants I knew were dangerous and violent, so that's what I saw them as. A danger that had to be contained. I didn't wish to become one of them." 

He paused. "When I had a mission, it was all I cared about. If I had to let humans shove me around and insult me, so be it. As long as they didn't interrupt the investigations, I couldn't care less." In truth, he had cared. Every insult, every glance or shove or punch, he'd felt them all. But whenever he reported to Amanda, she had helped him focus on what was really important. He had the most important mission in the history of android existence, and time was running out. How could he focus on himself and his own emotions, when he wasn't even supposed to have them?

"Maybe it took me so long because CyberLife replaced me when I died and the new Connor model hadn't collected all those experiences of emotion." he blinked slightly, thinking about death was weird. Especially now that he couldn't just come back from it ... the days of dying without further consequence were gone.

He looked at Hank, noting a shift in their relationship. Hank hummed in acknowledgement, but didn't ask anything else... had he noticed that Connor kept something from him? ...Of course he had. He had once been one of Detroit's best detectives, and when sober, he still was. 

"Guess we'll never know." Hank sighed, and scratched Sumo behind the ears.

And that was that.

The Lieutenant went to bed soon after, leaving the android on the couch to ponder why he felt such a strong need to keep the Zen Garden a secret.  
Connor came to the conclusion that it wasn't loyalty to CyberLife or the AI professor. Nor was it the possibility that Hank might judge him and not trust him afterwards.

No, the real reason was something else, something very... human.

It was shame.


End file.
